Chance Elson

by Ballard, Todhunter, 1903-1980

  "When?"

  "New Year's Eve."

  "Jeese, no, not then. The place will be full of big shots."

  "So much the better. Then they can't hush things up. Play this right and maybe you'll get a gold badge."

  Grouse took a long drink, the alcohol seeming to stiffen his courage. "All right, but for God's sake, pray that nothing goes wrong."

  New Year's Eve was even bigger than they had expected. Cellini had moved out the day before and they spread the tables to help fill up the space his rows of chairs had occupied.

  Abovestairs the dining room was full, and as Ghance looked across the gambling salon he wondered if an extra person could possibly force his way into the room.

  Only the pit showed as an empty island in the center. Here Doc and his two assistants moved quickly from one table to the next, checking the stacks of chips, sending to the cashier's cage for more when a table ran low.

  There were two dealers at the roulette wheel, people banked five deep around it. At the crap tables four men struggled to keep track of the bets.

  At eleven thirty, Dutch came through the private door from the cashier's cage to Ghance's office. He was carrying an armload of packaged bills. His face was red and there were sweat patches under his armpits.

  He wheezed as he laid the money on Ghance's desk. "Brother, I never saw anything like this. They're fighting out there, just to get up to the table, and Harvey tells me there's as many in the restaurant who can't get down the stairs. I'll bet we run straight through tomorrow night."

  Ghance counted the bundles, noting the amounts penciled on each tape. "Tell the bartenders to water the hquor. I don't want the place fuU of drunks."

  "I already have." Dutch went back to the cage. Ghance put the money in the safe but did not close the door. He

  walked again into the main room and stood against the wall, watching.

  He was still standing there when the raid started. It was one minute after midnight. Faintly from abovestairs they could hear the orchestra, and people singing, "Should auld acquaintance . . /*

  And then Ed Grouse's men moved. They were scattered through the crowd. Some had been playing at the tables, others merely watching.

  Grouse came down the steps suddenly. The guard stopped him. Grouse showed his badge, and the man pressed the alarm button with his toe, even as he was forced aside by the deputies who followed Grouse.

  Grouse shoved over to the bar. He jmnped on top of it and held up his hands, shouting, "Don't anyone move. This is a raid, a raid.*'

  Somewhere a woman screamed. Men fought each other as they made for the door.

  The buzzer warned Doc. Before Grouse had gained the bar, Doc had ducked under the rope connecting two of the tables and was in the milling mob struggling toward the office. He sHd through the door and bolted it. Ghance was at the safe, shoving packets of money into a cloth bag. Dutch came charging through the private door carrying more money.

  The noise from the gambling rooms increased, everyone shouting at once, and the panic had spread to the restainrant abovestairs.

  "Goddamn Gellini." Dutch was so hoarse he could hardly talk. "I'll kill that greaseball."

  Neither Ghance nor Doc bothered to answer. They got the money into the bags and ran for the stairs. At the top, they stopped to shp on the bus-boy coats before they ventured into the pantry. They could have saved the trouble. Grouse had four deputies in the kitchen waiting for them. Gellini had warned him about the private stairs.

  Leon was crying. The cooks and waiters huddled in one comer of the kitchen. In the dining room Grouse's men were bringing a certain amount of order. As the patrons filed

  through the door, each was forced to give his name and show identification and then permitted to leave.

  Dutch and Doc and Chance stood ia the comer beside the orchestra platform. Chance was consumed by a burning anger. The deputies had taken the money. Now they were letting them strictly alone, merely watching to see that they did not attempt to join the departing crowd.

  Chance's anger was at Cellini, and at Sullivan who he felt had double-crossed him, but mostly at himself. He'd let his temper get away from him when he had talked to Cellini earher in the week. He had thrown the man out, and this was what he got for it.

  He thought of the money in those sacks, and the money they had poured into this building and knew a feeling of hopelessness. They had been on their way, almost over the top. Now they would have to start all over again.

  He made a small sign with his hand to Harvey as the man was led past. It was an agreed sign. Harvey was to phone Joe as soon as he could, and Joe would phone their lawyer. Thank God Doc had had sense enough to put the man on a retainer. They would be fined. They might even draw suspended sentences, but they would be back as soon as he re-established his connections, as soon as he found out where SuUivan had shpped.

  The people from the gambling rooms were not faring as well as the restaurant patrons. They were brought up and questioned, some of them held. It took over an hour to sort through the crowd, and in that time Chance stood motionless, waiting.

  The waiters and cooks and kitchen help filed past. Leon was still crying. Leon had loved this restaurant. He could not have loved it more if he'd owned it.

  The dealers and assistant floormen and guards were brought up next. All of them would be fined. Some of the dealers would probably be floated out of town. They were men who had worked in gambling houses in a dozen states, and to most of them this was an old story.

  And then Chance's turn came. Crouse was sitting at the table nearest the dining-room door. They were motioned for-

  ward and Grouse surveyed them. Grouse was very pleased with himself and with the night's work. His stained teeth gleamed as he grinned at Ghance.

  "So you're Elson?"

  Ghance didn't say anything.

  Grouse looked at him a moment longer, then waved his hand. "Take them away."

  They were led out to a Buick sedan. It was very cold. The snow crunched under their feet. They walked down the drive. Ghance's wrist was cuffed to Doc. Dutch was on Doc's other side. It was the first time in his life Ghance had ever worn handcuffs. He did not like it.

  There was a driver and a man at his side. There were cars in front of them and cars behind. They made quite a cavalcade downtown to the county building.

  As they were led along the lower haU, Ghance saw Sullivan hurry in. The chief deputy's big face looked red, angry, but he did not meet Ghance's eye as he hurried by.

  They were mugged, fingerprinted; then Ghance was led into a room that had a long table running down the center. There were half a dozen detectives at the table. He stood at the end of the table, looking back at them. There was no chair for him to sit on.

  "Ever been arrested before, Elson?"

  "No." He was damned if he would say sir.

  "Sure of that?"

  He didn't answer. There was no point in repeating himself.

  "Elson your right name?"

  "Yes."

  "What are you doing in Gleveland? Why did you come here?"

  It went on for fifteen minutes. Twice he asked to call his lawyer. Twice he was refused. Finally SuUivan came in through a door at the other end of the room. He spoke in a low tone to the man at the end of the table and Ghance was led out and taken to a cell.

  He sat wondering what had happened to Doc and Dutch. He wondered what could happen to him. There was a noise at the door and the turnkey let Dan Sullivan into the room.

  Sullivan was nearly sixty. He looked like a judge, with his red face and the shock of white hair. He waited until the turnkey was out of sight, then said in a low voice, "J^st don't talk. You'll be taken into court tomorrow morning and fined two hundred and fifty dollars."

  "Where's my lawyer?"

  "You don't need your lawyer. You'll be charged as a common gambler, fined, and that's the end of it."

  "What happened?"

  "That son of a bitch Ed Grouse pulled a fastie. The bastar
d win be broken for this, but we can't do anything right now. The papers are all playing the story big. The old man is sore at me and Grouse and you. He doesn't like trouble."

  "What about the dough your men took? There was nearly twenty G's."

  "I'll do what I can."

  Ghance had to be satisfied. It wasn't that he trusted Sullivan, but Sullivan had to play along. SulHvan could not stand it if he really talked in court.

  He lay down on the hard bunk, pulled the single blanket over him. At least they hadn't dumped him in the tank. He slept. He did not know how long he slept before the rattle of the key in the cell door wakened him.

  Two uniformed men came in and walked him out between them. He supposed that it was morning, that he was being taken into court. He thought it was funny that they had given him no breakfast, but he did not really care.

  Instead of a court, they walked him into the room where he had been questioned last night. He saw Grouse sitting at the end of the table. There were three other men in the room.

  Suddenly Ghance was afraid. He had not been afraid often, but there was a look in Grouse's eyes which was not quite sane. Grouse got up from his chair and walked around to face Ghance.

  "Who beat up Ralph Gellini?"

  Ghance was surprised, but the surprise did not show. His habit of masking emotion was strong enough to conceal even his fear.

  "When did it happen?"

  "Two hours ago."

  "You know where I was two hours ago."

  Grouse hit him. The blow caught Chance on the temple and he went down. He stayed there, on his knees. He shook his head a little in an effort to clear it. Anger choked him. His impulse v/as to climb to his feet and try to take Grouse, but he stayed where he was. You didn't play another man's game, and this was Grouse's game. He had all the aces.

  Ghance guessed who had beaten Gellini. Harvey had phoned Joe, and Joe had gone out and found Gellini. That was the way Joe would handle things. His mind made every problem simple.

  "Get up." Grouse kicked him in the side. The broad sole of the heavy shoe cracked against his ribs, sent pain shooting through his whole body. "Get up." The kick came again. The pain was so great now that it was all he could do to drag himself upward.

  Grouse knocked him back to the floor with a blow that broke his nose. Dimly he heard one of the men still seated at the table say in a tight voice, "Easy, Ed. You'll mark him. Put on gloves."

  He did not see the tight gloves thrown to Grouse. He did not see the deputy pull them on. He managed to drag himself up, to slump into a chair.

  Grouse used one hand to hoist him to his feet. Grouse was scared himself. It wasn't that he loved his brother-in-law, but if Ralph died, Maria would blame him for it.

  "You bastard, talk. Tell me who it was before I kill you."

  He had no intention of killing Ghance. He wanted to make him talk, and there were ways of beating a man without marking him, without putting him clear out. Sadistic ways.

  He worked systematically, eflBciently, reducing his victim to a clod.

  Ghance did not quit. Dimly he saw the man before him. Dimly he reached out, managed to get hold of the center finger on Grouse's left hand. He grasped it with all his remaining strength. He did not hear the cry of pain wrenched from Grouse.

  He bent it backward, backward, until the bone snapped.

  That was when Grouse lost his head. That was when he grabbed the sap from his coat pocket and started beating Chance about the head and shoulders.

  Two of the men stopped him, finally, as Chance tipped out of the chair and fell sidewise to the floor. They held Crouse between them, panting, wide-eyed.

  "The son of a bitch."

  "You've killed him, for Christ sake."

  Crouse struggled to free himself. He couldn't, but he used his shoe to kick Chance twice more in the side before they hauled him back.

  "My God." They were staring down at the bloody, battered, inert man, and there was fear in their faces. "How do we cover this one?"

  Grouse wiped his mouth with the back of his injured hand, stared at the limp finger. "He broke it. He broke it."

  "To hell with your finger. He's supposed to be in court in a couple of hoiu-s. What do we do?"

  Ed Grouse took a ragged breath. His rage was dying and he realized that he was in a jam, a bad one. Sullivan was already sore at him, the old man fit to be tied. Goddamn Cellini. The guy had been getting him into trouble from the time he married into the family. He had to think, had to have time to think.

  "Run him out to the east-side substation and bury him there. Tell Marty no one's to know where he is, no one, until I think of something."

  His men looked at each other imcertainly. None of them liked the idea. Every one of them wished to God he was somewhere else at the moment. But they didn't know what else to do. They wrapped Chance in a coat, carted him to the back elevator and down into the basement garage.

  Two hours later they were back in town, getting ready for morning court. They marched Dutch in, and Doc in, and the gamblers and floormen. There were other prisoners, prostitutes who had been picked up the night before, a whole parade of dnmks still smeUing of the tank. All misdemeanors. The felonies weren't handled in morning court, even for arraignment.

  Doc and Dutch pleaded guilty and saw a bail bondsman come forward to pay the fines. Then they walked over to where SulHvan stood, just inside the door.

  "Where's Chance?*'

  SulHvan looked aroimd in surprise. He had not been watching the proceedings closely. He grunted something which Doc did not catch and moved aroimd the wall to the front of the courtroom, bending down to whisper to the clerk.

  The judge gave them no notice. He appeared bored, half-asleep, as the parade of girls and drunks moved slowly before him. To each he put the question, "How do you plead?*'

  It was as mechanical as clockwork. He consulted the papers before him, scribbled the sentence and passed it down to the clerk.

  SuUivan came back looking puzzled. "He wasn't brought down. He isn't on the Hst."

  "Weil for Christ sake, where is he? Get him down here. Do you want him to stay in jail all day?"

  "The judge doesn't like it if we add any names after the court opens."

  "To hell with the judge." Doc's tone was louder than he intended.

  Sullivan said, "I'll check." He turned, walked out of the courtroom and they followed. Fifteen minutes later he came back into the front office, looking more puzzled. "He's not upstairs. And he isn't charged out and the night jailer's off duty so I can't ask him. I don't get it."

  Doc said, "This is a great way to run a jail. Do you misplace prisoners very often?"

  Dan SuUivan ran his pudgy fingers through his white hair. He had been a poHceman for most of his Hfe, and in his own way he was a fairly good officer. To his mind he was honest. The fact that he had taken payoffs from gamblers and madams and during prohibition from bootleggers did not count. People were people; they would gamble and drink and find sex no matter what you did. In his eyes it was better to know where the spots were, better to keep them in a kind of loose control, than it was to have them scattered all over the coimty.

  "We-U find him."

  "You bet you'll find him, and fast." It was Doc and Doc was beginning to worry. "There's something screwy about this whole setup. You didn't know about the raid, and then you didn't want me to have our lawyer in court, and now Chance is missing. What goes on anyhow?"

  Dan Sullivan had an Irish temper. "Look, you don't talk to me this way."

  "The hell I don't," said Doc. "I don't trust Ed Grouse. I . went along with you, but I'm about finished. I'm going to get our lawyer down here and III find Chance if I have to search every stinking ceU myself."

  "He's not up there." SuUivan, too, began to show worry. "I checked just to make certain there was no mistake in the records."

  "You mean he's free? Go call Joe, Dutch. See if he's heard * from him. Maybe he just got up and walked out and went home."

  D
utch came back in five minutes. "No, he ain't there and Joe hasn't heard a word."

  Doc said, "I'm going to get Clarence." Clarence was their lawyer. "And then I'm going to bring in the boys from the newspapers and start talking if he isn't found fast. Where could he be?"

  SuUivan wet his hps. "I don't know. I'm leveling. Doc. Don't blow things until I can check with the night jailer."

  "And with Ed Crouse," said Doc. "I've a hunch he knows something about this. But, heU, he just couldn't walk out of here with a prisoner, could he?"

  SuUivan said, "Sometimes when we want to hold a prisoner on ice, that is not book him, we send him out to one of the substations and bury him so his lawyer can't get a writ and find him. But why in heU would anyone do that to Chance?"

  "Can you find out?"

  SuUivan said with dignity, "I'm the chief deputy. The man who fails to teU me what I ask is in real trouble." He went to the phone. Fifteen minutes later he was back, looking grave.

  "He's at the east-end station and they're scared. He's in bad shape. He's been beaten."

  Doc looked at Sullivan's face, then went to call the lawyer. When he came back he asked, "Who took him out there?*'

  "Two of Grouse's men."

  "I knew it. If he's bad, this department had better watch it. I'll give the whole damn story to the press."

  Chance was bad. Doc thought he was going to die. SuUi-van had an ambulance there in five minutes. SuUivan was as worried as Doc. He put out an alarm for Grouse and the two men who had taken Ghance to the substation. He said, "Just don't talk to the papers and I'll take care of Grouse."

  "And GeUini," Doc said. "Ralph GeUini planned this."

  Sullivan looked at him in surprise. "Haven't you seen the papers? GeUini was beaten up last night. He's got a fractured skull. They aren't sinre he'U Hve."

  There were no charges against Ghance, SulHvan and the sheriff and the county attorney decided between them. They agreed that if Doc didn't call in the papers, they'd kill the charges.

  Doc was all for telling them to go to hell, but Dutch and the lawyer disagreed. "If you stir things up," the lawyer said, "they'U throw the book at him. They'll have to, to protect themselves."